What is Vascular Plants?

Vascular plants have specialized xylem and phloem tissues that transport water and organic compounds through the plant. This system helped support larger plant forms with distinct organs.

What do xylem and phloem transport?

Xylem carries water and dissolved minerals through a plant; some of its conducting cells lose their living contents at maturity and become hollow channels. Phloem helps move sugars and other organic compounds from source regions to areas of use or storage. These tissues work with roots, stems, and leaves as a coordinated system. Not all vascular plants are woody: ferns and many herbaceous species are vascular too. Transport tissue helps support a plant body and move water over greater distances.

Groups of vascular plants

Vascular plants include spore-producing ferns and seed-producing plants. Seed plants include major groups such as gymnosperms and angiosperms. These groups differ in reproductive structures and in how spores and seeds form. Mosses are treated as nonvascular land plants because they lack true vascular tissue. “Vascular” does not mean that a plant has blood vessels like an animal; xylem and phloem are different structures. This classification helps explain how transport of water and nutrients shaped plant forms on land.